as the us moves towards an electrified future. u.s. gold corp. stuart: all right, how many states have a population less than 1 million? four, six, eight, 10? you first, ash. ashley: can't be that many i'll go with four. stuart: susan. >> six. stuart: lauren? >> four. stuart: i'll go with six because i know the answer already. >> [laughter] stuart: they are delaware, the dakotas, alaska, vermont, and wyoming. less than a million folks. its been a great week folks. ashley, lauren, susan, everybody , good stuff. neil, it's yours. neil: all right, thank you very much for that, stuart. we're following what's happening on the corner of wall and broad if we can cause some gains by the end of the week here. the big story is what's happening politically and could effect things financially. kyrsten sinema, a democrat who

will now be going as an independent, that be the third independent senator in that, whether it changes anything, is anyone's guess. let's go to chad pergram on that hey, chad. reporter: neil, as you say, this does not change the balance of power in the senate. sinema may switch her party affiliation but she will still caucus with the democrats. >> i intend to maintain my position on my committees and keep doing the work that i've been doing for arizona, so i don't think that things will change in terms of how i operate , or the work that i do in the united states senate. reporter: caucus with either party she would have zero committee assignments. two independents already caucus ed with the democrat bernie sanders and angus king. in short this means democrats still have a 51-49 advantage in the senate next year. >> it's like more of a cosmetic change than a party shake-up or senate shake-up kind of change,

so she's likely to continue to vote and she's explicitly said continue to vote the way she has just that she's removing herself from the partisan labels which she said she would never fit into neatly anyways. reporter: republicans immediately said the democratic party left sinema. they began putting out feelers. >> well it's a reflection on the democratic party and just how extreme and left wing its become in recent years. they've essentially drummed kyrsten sinema out of their party. i'd just tell her if she wants to come over and join us we be happy to welcome her into our party. reporter: this is not the same as when jim jeffords of vermont left the gop in 2001. that shifted control to the democrats. sinema could help the democrats avoid a vicious primary between her and the representative ruben gayego in 2024. neil? neil so chad in the end why did

she do it? reporter: bottom line is she's always been somewhere in the middle. she did this the day after, after raphael warnock won in georgia, so this was not going to tip the power in the senate or anything like that. it was going to be 51-49. she waited for the establishment of that universe and also, because she frankly probably feels some heat from gayego and some of these liberal democrats in arizona. that's a problem for her. they are very critical of her and how she votes on certain things. remember she was somebody right with joe manchin against the build back better bill although she ultimately voted for the smaller bill so this probably helps erin the end neil: thank you for that, chad. appreciate it. to joe lieberman right now. you know, he was al gore's vice presidential runningmate back in 2000 but a lot of people don't know that he was an independent senator from connecticut in the latter part of his career, so he knows how this goes and how it can work. senator, it's always good and honor to have you, sir, but i did want to get your take, being

in that independent role. now you caucus with the democrat s if memory serves me right, but how were things changing for you or did they change for you? >> yeah, hi, neil, great to be with you again. so it's a really good question, and i think my experience is probably a lot like senator sinemas. she has been an independent democrat but i'd say she's more comfortable, more often with the democrats than the republicans, but in my case, becoming an independent was after i got elected as an independent because the democrats defeated me in the primary in 2006. neil: that's right, i remember that. >> yeah, turned out to be a great thing, because it really enabled me to be more even more independent. kyrsten sinema, i think, is an independent democrat so this reflects who she is. i'd like to think as somebody whose independent and works on buy ship that also highlights

the fact that most of the american people self- identify themselves as independents, not as republicans or democrats. 42% as self-described independents as opposed to pretty much evenly divided between republicans and democrat s, but what your reporter said i think maybe part of this which is this is not only comfortable for senator semitism, but i think she's sending a message to the liberal democrats in arizona and around the country. you want to take me on in a primary from the left? i could always run as an independent. you think you could beat me then so i think it's a strong move, but in the end, as i decided, if you want to be able to deliver for your con stich -- constituents which i know she does for the people of arizona the rules require you to be in a party caucus, otherwise you lose

your seniority on all of the committees and a lot of your clout. neil: you know, we have now with sinema i think three independent senators. i'm just wondering, it won't change committee assignments. it won't change whose seniority is recognized or not. i get that, but would it give the democratic majority pause? in other words, would there be a reluctance for chuck schumer to go too far left? >> well, i hope so, and it might -- by declaring herself an independent, not a registered democrat senator sinema is obviously stepping away from the democratic party although she's a member of the democratic caucus, so i think it's an invitation, for instance for mitch mcconnell to reach out to her and when he thinks she might have a chance to get her to get enough extra votes.

remember it's only 51-49 or now 50-49, whatever. neil: right. >> doesn't take too many democrats if the republicans hold together for them to prevail. i'll tell you something else that happened to me in that term i was an independent. harry reed used me as a conduit or a vehicle to republicans he needed to get the votes necessary to pass the economic recovery from the recession, great recession in 2008 and then obamacare, in other words, because i was an independent, i had credibility with some of the more independent republicans that he needed and maybe chuck schumer will try to use sinema in exactly the same way. i think it's health it. i think it begins to break the lock-hold that the two parties have on congress and on

american politics, which really doesn't represent, as i say, the largest group of voters in america who are by their own self-description, independents. neil: you've always been your own man, senator, i will give you that, my friend. thank you very much, very good seeing you again. >> thank you. i know you don't have time but some other time i'll sing my course of "my way" just to show you. neil: [laughter] yeah, i wish we could have more time to hear that, but maybe another time. senator it's always good having you on. >> okay. neil: thank you very much. joe lieberman. kelly o'grady meanwhile in los angeles, she's been following these ongoing stories about twitter and secret information and now what is going on here, maybe a black list. could you help me with that, kelly? reporter: i can, neil. yeah, twitter is calling it visibility filtering, so elon musk released part two of the

twitter files last night and it reveals that they were using the tool to actively limit the visibility of not just specific accounts but also certain content and ideas from trending. there were a number of familiar faces appearing in those files last night. dan bongino, charlie kirk both had their accounts blacklisted, but it directly contradicts how previous management always maintained that no shadow banning happened. i want to share a tweet from the former head of legal. i went back to 2018 and she responded a colleague insisting that twitter doesn't shadow ban with this. she said "twitter exists to serve the public conversation enabling important discussions around the world to occur, favor ing one specific ideology or belief go against everything we stand for ." what last night's drop reveals though is twitter was deciding what important discussions were allowed wide reach. these decisions were happening at the highest level. the platform even having a secret counsel including gad, as well as former ceo jack dorsey and parag agarwal.

one of the filtered individuals was dr. day, he's a stanford health policy professor who argued that covid lockdowns would harm children. i spoke to him about how twitter 's actions could impact medicine. >> it's actually a process and that process requires open discussion among people. there's nobody that has a monopoly of truth. you have this kind of regime which says okay we have decided what's true and false even before the scientific debate has happened. you're going to have terrible results both in medicine and science more generally. reporter: elon musk did share the company is developing a solution, tweeting they're " working on a software update that will show your true account status" so you know clearly if you've been shadow banned. the reason why and how to appeal , but neil, i mean, this whole, the files last night underscores the dangers. this isn't just celebrities being suppressed. this impacted ordinary folks talking about medicine, education, on a space they believe to be open.

back to you. neil: fascinating. kelly great work on this i appreciate it. kelly o'grady following all that want to go to carl sabo right now. he's a fascinating individual here because he sort of had a front row seat at a lot of this if you think about it. he's met with republican and democratic house staffers to gather intelligence about facebook, about twitter, so maybe he can make sense where all of this is going. it's great to have you back, carl. what do you make of these latest developments? >> yeah, thanks for having me back. you know, these latest developments just build upon the files that were released last friday which kind of included my own personal e-mail address, not to throw in that part, but what they do underscore is an ongoing narrative of conversations and coercion between the government and twitter and whether twitter was putting its finger on the scales of what content is being promoted and not being promoted. now, i'm really shocked by what i saw from some of these files.

the doctor from stanford is a great example of what really scares me every single day, and that is potential conversations between government and twitter and the coercive efforts of government on twitter. now, we do have examples of the white house coming out and saying that social media is killing people, if they promote misinformation or disinformation that they defined as anything related to covid and we need to know more about what's going on here and how much that is pressured people at twitter to promote or demethodology content. and that choice we fight everyday for free expression and free enterprise on the internet we've been doing it for 20 years and we love seeing this type of information get out there because hopefully this will inspire much-needed change to push government out of business and let these businesses do what they do best which is serve their user, serve their customer s, and really give us free speech on the internet. neil: you know it really depends on, carl, the eye of the beholder, right?

i've been flipping around watching other news organizations including this one how they have been covering this if you're a liberal, you are oriented and you don't think it's any big deal. if you aren't so inclined you think this is a huge deal and i'm wondering if we will see life through the prism in which we judge life and that there won't be any changes. >> you know, i think you're right about how this is trying to get bipartisan or sorry trying to get partisan and you know, keep in mind. democrats have really enjoyed a real advantage here. they enjoyed it in the legacy media. they enjoyed it in twitter that's what these files show. there's a reason why the biden administration created the disinformation governance board shortly after musk announced his acquisition because democrats are scared about what maybe revealed and what information maybe available if we begin opening and making the changes that musk is trying to make, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. you know, we've been working to get government out of control of media. get government out of control of

social media, and there's legislation on the hill, fortunately, from people like representative jim jordan and representative comer and representative rogers that would make crystal clear that the federal government cannot go around pressuring social media platforms to promote the content that the political parties want, and so this is a great step. i hope this is a transition moment for all of us to really get government out and get the businesses and americans back in control of free speech online. neil: you know, one quick addition if you don't mind, carl sam bankman-fried is going to testify i believe with the house financial services committee next week. what is he in for? >> you know, this is one of the biggest cases that a lot of people aren't talking about. i think some of that comes down to politics. sbf, sam bankman-fried, ftx $32 billion disappeared overnight and we have representative maxine waters saying oh, he seems like a good

guy. he's doing good things, but keep in mind, sbf gave $40 million to the democratic party this past election cycle and this is when a clear case of fraud, this is bernie madoff level corruption and greed and unfortunately i think because of his huge political donations to democrats , donations to some republicans, he's expecting a white glove approach and i really hope he doesn't get it. he needs to be taken to task and he's going to testify before congress and they really need to hold his feet to the fire. neil: you think he's going to jail? >> you know, putting on my lawyer hat, i mean, fraud is fraud. deception is deception and he promised every single user that no customer funds will be used or transmitted over to ftx trading. they were, and as eisenhower used to say, the buck stops here , and he was in charge of it all. neil: carl, let's see what happens. love having you on, we'll have to have you back, carl szabo

following these big developments meanwhile we're following the response to what seemed to be a worrisome inflation report until people stepped back and said the wholesale report was lousy for the month, year-over-year was better than we thought so maybe it's not so bad. that's for the moment. we're on top of that after this. ♪ ♪

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neil: you know, i used to think the important report was the most important report we get i think it still is but some of these inflation gauges like what we get on retail inflation and of course what was released today on wholesale inflation, the so-called ppi, the producer price index, coming in a little stronger than thought, depending on what time perspective you have. that's the kind of stuff that gets the markets worried or maybe in this case so far not worried. edward lawrence knows this stuff inside and out. he can help us with maybe why the market is reacting the way it is. what do you think, buddy? reporter: neil, well the producer price index came out this morning and as you said it came down a little bit

but slightly hotter than expected and the market sold off on that but then, the consumer sentiment number from university of michigan came out a little bit above expectations in the market, paired the losses and you see there just under the green but pairing those losses. now look at this chart though. it shows the producer price index fell slightly below cpi inflation for the first time. now that's a good sign but as the federal reserve chairman says it could be another indication of inflation moving sideways. now white house spokesperson telling me that the report shows the progress we have made on inflation without giving up all the progress we have made on economic growth and job creation , but business executive s look at the economy and believe inflation may not be over. >> so i think what we're going to see over the coming year is businesses trying to catch up. they've been absorbing some of these inflationary pressures rather than passing them on while they are absorbing pressures from theft and from higher regulations and from energy costs being up. reporter: so in an exclusive interview i did with new york

federal reserve president john williams last week before the feds blackout period he told me it could be well into 2025 before we see inflation under or at 2%. >> has it peaked and are we on the downside? >> well the over am inflation number, i don't know if it's peak because that depends on volatile prices like food and energy which have been effected by global developments. i do think we're starting to see some signs on inflation measures they're moving in the right direction. reporter: but not moving as fast as the fed would like. they are indicating there could be smaller rate increases but more of those smaller rate increases into next year, with elevated inflation through 2023. neil? neil: edward, when does austin g ouslby start as the chicago fed president and when he does start, will he be a voting member? reporter: that is a really good question. he is not a voting member as of yet and i have not looked at next year's list because it does

rotate. he should start around the first of the year, it looks like. i don't have the exact dates, so you've got me on that one. neil: that was not my intention but i do enjoy it when i get to catch you in that rare moment when you're not ready but that is a very rare moment, my friend edward thank you very very much, edward lawrence on that. we've got brian brenberg joining us right now. his take on all of this. regardless of who votes and when , professor, i'm just wondering what you make of inflation now. >> well, here is the problem, neil. so you're getting a little bit of downward movement which is nice. it's slow. it's not as fast as we want to see it go, but with inflation the problem always is how do you get the last little bit out of there. like when you're on a weight loss program. you drop the first 10 but it's those last five that you can't get and you got to work really hard for. i think that's a situation the fed is in right now. they know that they've cranked up rates. that's helped a little bit but how much higher do you have to go to get to 2%? they don't know the answer to that but i think that's what's

got the market worried and frankly businesses worried because the higher they go at those rates, the more expensive all that debt gets for americans and let's face it right now americans have a heavy debt load their household debt is at record highs. credit card debt is at record highs. every time the rates go up they are going to feel that pinch a little bit more. that's the precarious situation as we get into 2023, how hard is that going to hit consumers we don't know. neil: that's the difference between you and me. i find the last 50 pounds the toughest but you could be right on that 10. let me ask you though in all seriousness, you know, i always worry that they over do it, brian, you and i had these discussions many times because soft landings are few and far between. in fact they're zero and none between, so they could be over doing it as we speak. now i had san zell here yesterday, the real estate buyer , buys distressed properties. he still says there's nothing

distressed enough for him to buy so that the fed has to keep raising these rates. what do you think of all of that >> well you just can't answer that question. that's the problem when you get into an inflationary situation, there is no roadmap. yeah, the fed could be over doing it but it's almost worse if they under do it, neil, and they leave us at, you know, four , 5% inflation because they pullback too quickly. now the market would love that. the market would love to see the fed pause but main street, you've got to think about main street for a second. everybody on main street is still saying food prices are out of control. gas prices have come down but diesel prices are still five bucks or thereabouts. we've got to get that under control, so it's this bifurcation between wall street and main street and the definition of over doing it or under doing it really depends on what perspective you're coming from, but i think the fact is for the fed, they've got one job. they've got to give us stable money and until they know

they've done that i don't think they can let up. that might mean they have overdone it and that's the fault of starting too late for them in my view but once you're on this path, you've got to finish the job because it's inflation that wrecks economies more than anything else. neil: but if they keep going, and the stories are true that they go beyond hiking the federal funds rate beyond 5% maybe to 6-6.5% all bets are off , aren't they? >> i don't think they will go that high, neil. that be really, up to 6-6.5%. i'm not saying they don't need to by the way, i don't know the answer to that question but you're already seeing rumblings, obviously they will only do a 50 basis point hike this month. they are already sort of tapering down. i think the real risk, neil, in this environment is politics are going to jump in here. you're going to hear a lot of voices from d.c. saying don't send us into recession. pullback on this , because d.c. doesn't hate inflation as much

as main street does, and that's my real concern that we pullback too early and we get in this environment where politicians start saying hey, why can't you live with 4% inflation? what's the big deal here? wall street loves it. d.c. is fine with us, and main street says i can't keep up because you haven't done your job, fed, of getting back the 2% neil: you know, brian? you're in the wicked snot category. >> [laughter] neil: so keep going my friend. >> more wicked than smart, neil neil: i don't know about that but i always learn a lot as our viewers do as well. i always tease brian because i had a professor like him when i was in school i would have done a little bit better than i did but it's a moot point now isn't it? all right, they are trying to avoid right now in this limited time between the old congress goes and the new congress comes in, to avoid a government shutdown. this happens every two years, right? we're facing a government shutdown. stay with us.

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neil: you know, there's no rest for the weary. this guy just gets re-elected, he's on fire right now, could be the next head of the house ways and means committee, and adrian smith a nebraska congressman is facing what some fear could be another government shutdown. i don't want to get extreme there. he knows far more than i but congressman, how do things look right now? >> well i think a shutdown is avoidable. the democrats are asking for so much. they want to take us back to the policies that triggered so much inflation and we need to turn away from that. some of those things have expired. we need to make sure they stay expired because they are bad

policies, so we need to do some things on trade to address the supply chain shortage. obviously the workforce crisis that we are facing, all of these things contributing to inflation let's get better policies on the books and i think we can start doing that in january while we say no to bad policies between now and then. neil: in the meantime, there's this battle over whose going to lead you in the house, congressman, and it seems like kevin mccarthy has a devil of a time getting to that 218 votes he's going to need. do you think he will? >> he will. he's got the vast majority support ink across conference. kevin is a good listener, he has an open door, he has just such i think a positive approach and ultimately i think that gets him to the speaker' office. neil: but he needs virtually all of those republicans, right? and he doesn't have them, so how do you see it going? >> well i think in the days

between now and january 3, there are so many arguments to be made that this is actually new leadership, kevin's never been speaker before. this is a fresh start that we all want to come together and unify moving forward. neil: so if he has trouble, this whole thing as you know, congressman, has prompted democrats to say you know these guys are all over the map. there's division in their ranks. is it that bad? >> it is bad to have this kind of division, especially right now where we want to pursue a fresh start. the democrats have shown how united they have been in pushing these horrible policies for our country. the president, you know, canada, biden he exited the stage early on and lurked so far leftward in bringing about policies that like i said have triggered inflation. now is a time for republicans to come together with our positive ideas of reducing inflation, growing the economy for the

betterment of the american people and our country as a whole. neil: you know, in the house ways and means committee this is where all the tax stuff starts and republicans seem very keen on making permanent the trump tax cuts. how doable is that when the senate is in democrat control and obviously the white house is as well. >> right, well we made bush tax cuts permanent under obama. i think actually these tax policies and cuts have been very productive. there's proof that they have been productive in growing revenue to the government, but they are more popular, among the middle class and expensing for businesses, especially small businesses and these are more popular and i think ultimately the american people will demand that we make these tax policies permanent again for the betterment of our economy. neil: we'll watch it closely, congressman, thank you very very much. in the meantime, we're keeping a

close eye on brian moynihan, talking up the fact that the economy to him isn't nearly as bad as it's portrayed and then low and behold, we hear, that maybe joe biden was hearing all of that, and has a job offer to make, or might make. it's all rumor, but what's up? after this. ♪ ♪ thinkorswim® by td ameritrade is more than a trading platform. it's an entire trading experience. with innovation that lets you customize interfaces, charts and orders to your style of trading. personalized education to expand your perspective. and a dedicated trade desk of expert-level support. that will push you to be even better. and just might change how you trade—forever. because once you experience thinkorswim® by td ameritrade

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neil: all right, now brian moynihan is the head of bank of america and his consumer-driven business is holding on and that the consumers holding on, but it mate be getting the attention of the white house because he isn't nearly as dire as some of these other financial counterparts, and charlie gasparino has been looking into that part of the story. hey, charlie good to have you my friend, what do you got? charlie: thank you, neil, and it sounded to me like he was the treasury secretary and definitely touting the administration's line and here is what we know from sources in washington, sources on wall street, people who know brian moynihan, people who know the thinking of the white house, and in terms of the potential of the next treasury secretary. now as you know the current treasury secretary is janet yellen. i understand it's her decision if she wants to step down. a lot of people think she will. she's come out recently and says she has no plans. not exactly a definitive statement but there is at work a short list of people to replace her if she steps down and the

latest entrant to that short list from sources are telling the fox business network is bank of america ceo brian moynihan. he has been making the rounds lately. tv, your show, also state dinner s. he met with king charles recently in the new uk prime minister. he's been in the white house a lot. he was at the macron dinner and he's clearly amping up his public profile and from what i understand, this amping up of the public profile clearly put him on the short list. who else is on the short list? well i would say if you're going to say two leading contenders it be right now brian moynihan and gina romando. the very good commerce secretary who has a lot of people inside the white house thinks she's doing a very good job so those be the two front-runners and i think if you want to further handicap gary gensler the sec chief has an outside shot, but the news of the day, neil, is that it's moynihan on that short list and that's if

yellen does step down. again, lots of speculation about her. she's come out and said i have no plans. not exactly in denial but you know, it's her call. we should point out that moynihan is a democrat. he's one of the more successful bank ceo's. he's been there since the financial crisis. he's led bank of america out of some of the depths of the financial crisis, so he's a pretty capable guy. the one thing he has against him , if yellen does step down, and this is a common theme in the biden administration, is he's a white male, to be quite honest with you, and he's really tied to wall street. those two things put him at odds with the progressive wings of the democratic party but he's got a lot of supporters internal ly and he's got, you know, if you put his resume up against gina romando who is very capable, his resume is tough to beat given all he's done at bank of america and what he knows about the banking system so here

is what we have. a horse rate a little bit here. again, it's all contingent on yellen and if yellen does step down let the race begin. neil, back to you. neil: do the financial titans keep track of, you know, what firm ultimately gets that treasury job or financial job or commerce job? i keep thinking of goldman sachs , presidents from both sides of the aisle multiple times. we've not seen bank of america tapped in the past but how much do they look at that? charlie: you know, yeah and bank of america as you know is a conglomeration over the years of many banks. we can remember the time i'm old enough to remember when north carolina national bank, ncnb would merge with bank of america. neil: you're right and now it's part of merril lynch is under its umbrella. charlie: it's a big umbrella. it does a lot of things. the guy who runs it has to be smart and if you think of successful bankers you think of jamie dimon and remember his

name floated initially during the trump years, and i think it was trump's first term, and he denied it, but they considered him. they were looking at him and probably spoke with him, but he didn't take the job. i don't think he was a serious candidate. i think moynihan is a serious candidate. they may come out and deny this. i'll tell you, neil. i gave him all morning to speak, to talk me out of this story. i went to the pr guy whose both a pr and government affairs and told them exactly what i was going to write. they did not deny it. that doesn't mean this will happen, but i'm just telling you that this story, what i'm telling you based on how i'm telling you is very solid. my sources are very solid. that doesn't mean it'll happen but this is a solid story. back to you. neil: but i do feel a little personal charlie gasparino aching that you weren't invited to the emmanuel macron state dinner. charlie: i wasn't invited to that. i wasn't invited to andrew cuomo 's birthday party and i like andrew. why are people dissing me?

was i invited to the anniversary of fox business? i don't think i was invited to that. nobody likes me. neil: oh, really? i have your invite here. charlie: [laughter] neil: i'm sorry, charlie. charlie: got lost in the mail, ha? neil: absolutely, all right, my friend, thank you very very much , charlie gasparino. we'll follow that very very closely. we're also following, you know, the good news that a basketball star is back on u.s. soil, but questions about the deal that got her back, after this. and you are? i'm an investor...in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to... nasdaq 100 innovations like... wearable training optimization tech. uh, how long are you... i'm done. i'm okay.

neil: all right, brittney griner is back on u.s. soil right now. there is a procedure to all of this out of abundance of caution , for her safety, to check her out, how she's doing. rich ed son has more from the white house. what can you tell us? reporter: good afternoon, neil. that is the process right now. she is in san antonio, this is a process that's happened before for a number of other americans who have been in captivity who have been hostages in other countries and there's also now a focus on those who are still there like paul whelan, he was arrested nearly four years ago in russia. the white house says the trade really that was on the table from the russian government was simply brittney griner for

viktor bout, that arms dealer. >> they never said to us, hey, we want bout back. you get to choose americans, whether it's britney or paul. they are treating paul differently. paul was never in that mix in their mind with respect to mr. bout. it was just for britney so the president had a tough decision to make. >> bout was known for his ability to circumvent arms embargo, supply weapons to groups around the world and has ties to russian intelligence and for years the russian government tried to secure his release. some congressional republicans say this deal was a mistake. >> we should have never traded viktor bout. i just want to stress how dangerous he is. this is not someone whose selling firearms for street gangs in moscow. we're talking about anti- aircraft systems, tanks and artillery, missiles, and rockets , that fueled thousands of thousands of deaths, rapes, amputations, torture, dismember ment. reporter: democrats have counter

ed the presidents from both parties have made difficult trades to free americans. in 2020 a russian court convicted paul whelan of spying and sentenced him to 16 years . his family says the u.s. government needs to be more assertive, if countries like russia, they say, are going to grab innocent americans, the u.s. should be prepared to take more law-breaking kremlin- connected russians in retaliation to prepare for situations like this. neil, back to you. neil: rich, thank you very much. speaking of paul whelan, we will have his brother on, tomorrow my weekend show, cavuto live, get his take on this and what if anything he's heard from his brother and hope he could be home before christmas. that looks very problematic to put it mildly. we'll keep you posted on that. claudia rosette to take sense of all of this as only she can, you know, no one does anything out of great virtue these days. i understand that, claudia, but this idea that this was a swap involving viktor bout, the

so-called "merchant of death " and all of that, i'm just wondering what you make of it because i haven't had a chance to talk to you about it. >> it's horrendous. i mean, it's landmark bad deal. it's right up there with president obama shipping pallets of cash to the iranians. look, what this has done, it's not rocket science. this is hostage politics, and brittney griner was given this very harsh sentence and was a pawn in this whole thing, but this deal has basically painted a target on the back of every american. we are valuable hostages. you can get very nice prices for holding us and then putting that to the biden white house, and it makes it worse that the white house is saying, well, that was the only choice we had. i mean, why are we letting putin dictate the terms? why didn't we say what was on the table and that's the beginning of the problem. this is signaling to every

tyrant around the world, like xi-jinping of china, that it really pays to scoop up american hostages. that's a bad, bad sign to give. neil: you know, you just mentioned xi-jinping and as you know he's been meeting with saudi leaders and extending that to middle east leaders minus israel of course but i'm just wondering what you make of these developments in concert with what putin has been doing. >> yeah, look. putin got himself into a spot with ukraine where he clearly didn't expect the kind of resistance he's been getting, but he's now playing the united states for absolute chumps. this was a terrible deal that was done for brittney griner. it sends a message, it's not only materially dangerous, as in viktor bout is genuinely dangerous, having him freed is very bad, but it also sends a message and we now have, as this is all going on, xi-jinping in saudi arabia

receiving this royal reception on the heels of president biden earlier this year making that humiliating trip, you know, begging them to pump more oil, because he's choked it off of the united states. he's going to venezuela. he begged the saudis and you now have china sort of making its for ey into the middle east saying stick with us, boys, we're not going to fuss about human rights. we're just going to do really lucrative business with you which is actually very dangerous , not least for the saudis. they really ought to understand. if you read and listen to what xi-jinping has been putting out for years now, he doesn't intend happy partnerships. he sees other policies as future states. that's what this is about. that's exactly where it is dangerous to us. that's what he's doing and the kind of message going back to the hostage exchange that just took place is that the u.s. can really be played, not only will we run from the taliban in afghanistan but

you take hostages and here is what happens and neil, can i just add? if the intent was and one could understand this , to try and make some special provision to protect brittney griner because she is in various ways a minority where in russia they really persecute such people, this backfires because what you've now done is say that scooping up american minorities as hostages is a very very rewarding game. they are the most high-value hostages you can get. you get viktor bout for them whereas paul whelan they are going to let him sit in a russian prison. well that's no favor to america 's minorities. it says that they're the best value hostages that a tyrant regime can pick-up. the whole thing is so backwards, and neil, what needs to be created here and president biden isn't doing it is a climate in which countries like china or

russia don't want to take american hostages. they don't consider it worth it. it's too dangerous and expensive for them. the opposite of that is taking place. neil: all right claudia, i always enjoy having you. thank you very very much. meanwhile, we've got the dow now down about 30 points here the back and forth on how serious inflation is is a problem. we've got a lot more after this. .. with a multi-flex midgate for extra storage. and an available 400 miles of range on a full charge. evs for everyone, everywhere. chevrolet

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